So after a short coach trip we have arrived in Toronto. First impressions are that it looks quite nice with a few modern art galleries and buildings.

However as we get closer to our hostel we notice that the streets are getting dirtier, there's more graffiti on the walls and the place just generally looks like a s*** hole. We also notice that we seem to be venturing out of Canada and somehow into China.
Jodie stops outside a run down building and proceeds to inform me that this building that resembles a homeless shelter with smashed windows and graffiti everywhere will be our accommodation for the next 3 nights. GREAT!!!
We walk inside to check in and we are greeted by a Chinese woman who can hardly speak English yet somehow informs us that we have to remove our shoes and leave them downstairs because of hygiene. I wonder how many bugs and mice will be living in them when we put them on next! She gives us our room key and quickly scurries off back into her office. When we open the door to our room we realised why she had run away from us so quickly!
Our 'bedroom' is basically just an old dirty, prison hard bed put in one of their bathrooms! There is a toilet and shower right next to the bed with no wall or sheet or anything inbetween, talk about the death of romance! I half expected other guests to walk in and s*** in front of us!
Looking on the bright side though we had a fridge with some kind of gunge in it and a bar going straight across the middle of our room (head height) that was meant to be our wardrobe!
We put our bags in cleanest place we could find and headed straight out!

We weren't too far away from the CN tower so we headed in that direction. We went and checked out the harbour that Mum and Dad told us about and sure enough it was gorgeous. There was a little beach that looked out to what I thought at first was sea (later found out it was a lake) and the Toronto islands. The CN tower and the baseball stadium were right behind us so it is a quite impressive skyline. We sat on the beach for a while in the sun, just chilled out with a good view but had to move on when we started to doze off. We walked along to check out the boats. There was a place you could rent out powerboats, was really tempted to get one especially at the bargain price of $300 an hour!

We carried on walking along and had a look in the big shopping mall. We got some food for our stay but considering something was living in our fridge and the hostels pans and pots were disgusting we really didn't have much choice of what we could get!
We settled on a loaf of bread and some peanut butter, all we had for 3 days was noodles and peanut butter sandwiches, we never want to see peanut butter sandwiches ever again!
There was a street performer along the harbour and he was really good. He was doing all kind of juggling tricks etc but his finale was really good. He stood up on a pole about 10 feet tall and got 4 men from the crowd to hold the ropes to steady it. He then got a little girl out of the crowd and she had to throw a ball up to him so he could catch it on his head. When he finished he asked or money and I have never seen such a big crowd go so quick!

Next day we went to the CN tower. We were queueing up to get the tickets when we met the Japanese guy from our hostel in Niagara, how random. The lifts up to the top are all glass so you can see how quick you are travelling and how high you are. The views at the top are amazing, you can see the whole of the city on one side and on the other you get great views of the islands and the lake. Better views than the Empire State building in my opinion, not Jodie's though. On one side of the CN tower they have glass floors. You can really see how high up you are. It took a while to get Jodie on it. At first she would only stand on it so when I got a picture all you could see was a grey concrete wall behind her, you coudn't even tell she was on it! After much pursuading she lied down on the floor and got a proper picture taken.

After we finished up the tower we walked over to the main square. It was like a smaller Times Square with fountains in the middle of it and street performers. We stopped for a drink in Hard Rock and just sat an chilled out. There was a little kid playing the drums across the street and he was immense.

Next day we got up early and and went down to the harbour to get the boat out to the islands, the view from the boat of the city was fantastic. The islands are like a big national park, full of beaches and picnic areas that are really well kept.
We arrived on the Central Island an went to have a look at the themepark they had there. There wasn't really many decent rides there, the only one we wanted to do was the log flume and for about 50 dollars it just wasn't worth it. We carried on walking and found a petting zoo. In here we found Toronto's ugliest pig but the petting zoo is basically just like the IOM countryside, full of sheep and horses etc.

We walked to the beach they had and walked hand in hand (aww how romantic!) in the sea/lake. We carried on walking all the way round and came across what they described as a 'clothing optional' beach, in other words a nudist beach!
We were debating if we should be brave and take a walk along it to check it out, think I nearly pursuaded Jodie to do it until a fat old man stood up and showed us his shrivelled up ding dong! That quickly changed her mind, never seen her run so quick!
After our stomachs had recovered we stopped off for some food, peanut butter again! I couldn't manage mine so fed a duck out of my hand, much more fun!

After all the walking we had done in NY, Niagara Falls and now Toronto we decided to head back to our drug den before we were crippled. We somehow managed to spend a night in our room watching the telly that was perched at the end of our bed while in our sleeping bag liners (did not want to touch the bed sheets, looked like they had never been washed!)

Tomorrow we head to Rochester to stay with Jodie's step bro Liam and his wife Dani. Have enjoyed Toronto, was just a shame we were in the Pully area.